OKYO, Sept. 25 - With North Korea's nuclear threat flaring up this week, Senator John Kerry vowed in Philadelphia on Friday to get the talks about the country's weapons program "back on track" if elected president.

In Vienna, the annual meeting of the 137-nation International Atomic Energy Agency ended Friday, saying it "particularly welcomes" multinational talks on North Korea.

But in Northeast Asia, where the talks are to take place this weekend in Beijing, North Korea watchers are unsure when the next round will occur, or if they will occur at all.

"At the earliest, the talks might be resumed at the end of the year, that is December, or early next year," Aleksandr Losyukov, Russia's ambassador to Japan and former delegate at the talks, said Friday at a seminar here. Other political analysts are more pessimistic about a resumption of the talks involving North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States.

"All indications are that the six-party talks will not be held anytime soon, if at all ever again," said C. Kenneth Quinones, the former director of the North Korea affairs office for the State Department, who has talked with North Korean diplomats in recent weeks.

The urgency of defusing North Korea's arsenal became clear this week when American and Japanese officials reported that soldiers and vehicles were gathering around North Korean missile sites, and the country's main newspaper warned that North Korea could "turn Japan into a nuclear sea of fire." The Kyodo news agency of Japan said the latest analysis indicated that North Korea was conducting missile preparedness drills in northwestern North Korea. At a site in the east, North Korea may be preparing the test burn of an engine of a modified Soviet-made submarine-launched missile, Kyodo reported Saturday. Known as an SSN6, this missile has a range of up to 2,500 miles, roughly the distance from North Korea to Guam.

Two weeks ago, North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a statement linking its future participation in the nuclear talks to a meeting in early November of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' watchdog group in Vienna.

After disclosures that South Korean scientists had done experiments that could be used to make raw materials for nuclear weapons, North Korea tied any future meeting to an International Atomic Energy Agency report due in November. On Saturday, an agency team completed a second inspection of South Korean nuclear facilities. "The resumption of the talks can no longer be discussed unless the U.S. drops its hostile policy based on double standards toward" North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency said Sept. 18.

In response, South Korea embarked on a diplomatic offensive. "The Republic of Korea reaffirms it has no intention of developing or possessing nuclear weapons," Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon told the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday.

(a) Bush is basically supported by all nations involved, with the exception possibly of S. Korea. Japan, China, Russia, and even bystander nations like Taiwan and India, appreciate his stance on this issue and others much more than a kerry administration would.

(b) bush deals from a position of strength, the n. koreans know he's got the balls to stand up to them

(c) bush's approach, while flawed, is still better than kerry's would be from what kerry has made known up until now. bush has shown innovation in dealing with n. korea (the six nation summit system and sending missile defense ships (seventh fleet naval ships) on deployment to track n. korean missile activity)

(a) Bush is basically supported by all nations involved, with the exception possibly of S. Korea. Japan, China, Russia, and even bystander nations like Taiwan and India, appreciate his stance on this issue and others much more than a kerry administration would.

(b) bush deals from a position of strength, the n. koreans know he's got the balls to stand up to them

(c) bush's approach, while flawed, is still better than kerry's would be from what kerry has made known up until now. bush has shown innovation in dealing with n. korea (the six nation summit system and sending missile defense ships (seventh fleet naval ships) on deployment to track n. korean missile activity)

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Nato, I was being facetious. Trust me, Kerry couldn't do a thing about NK. Kim would eat him alive.

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